Rubber Band CarBy Louie and alex

INTRODUCTION:

Rubber band cars are made out of a 5in. x 5 in. square of cardboard with a 1.5in. x 2in. cut out at the bottom center.. The cardboard is the car body. This should be done with the side with holes on the sides. A stick is shoved through a hole on the side and fed through the hole on the other side. The stick is the axle. Then CDs are put through the axle and taped into place.

Rubber band cars are made out of cardboard, sticks, duct tape, CDs, and Rubber bands.

Elastic potential energy is the rubber band being able to be wound up and let go to move the card board car with CD wheels forward. The elastic potential energy turns to kinetic energy when the rubber band is let go and unrolling to make the cardboard car move.

Potential energy is something having the ability and energy to do work. Kinetic energy is something that is doing work.

IMPORTANT MODIFICATIONS:

One important modification was cutting the square cardboard/main car body into a triangle shape. It got rid of a lot of the car's weight so the rubber band was able to move the car farther. This rubber band car went 8 1/2 feet.

Another important modification was jamming a stick into the top until it hit the top of the rectangle cut out on the bottoms of the car. This rubber band car went 15 ft.

The third modification was taping the ends of the sticks and making the tape bundle the right size that fits in the hole of the wheels. This makes it so that the tape won't bend the whole wheels to an angle and make the CD wheels wobble. This modification also makes it so that the rubber band car doesn't turn. Turning makes it so that the car doesn't go as far. This rubber band car went 15 ft.

The fourth modification was cutting the rubber band in half and taping it onto the axle vertically. This makes the rubber band longer so it can power the rubber band car longer, making the rubber band car go farther. This rubber band car went 15 ft.

The furthest distance our rubber band cars went was 15 ft.

VELCOCITY AND ACCELERATION:

We used the Video Physics app to analyze velocity and acceleration by filming a video of our rubber band car driving in a secluded area of the school so it was just the rubber band car data being collected. Then we'd press the chart button and then put dots to track the rubber band car. Every few frames a dot is placed. Then we had to measure the meter stick and that would calculate the meters per second the rubber band car went. The data charts are automatically made after this.

We needed to shoot the video in a secluded area of the school because we only wanted to measure the velocity and acceleration of our rubber band car. If someone was to walk by in our video it would mess up our measurements. We placed down dots on the path of the wheels every few frames and pressed track. The dots measured how far our rubber band car went and where it went. Then we'd measure the meter stick and that would calculate the meters per second our rubber band car went.

Velocity is the speed of something in a direction. The velocity of our rubber band car was 0.875 meters per second.

The acceleration of our rubber band car was 0.19375 meters per second. I got this answer by subtracting 0.225 from 1, which was final velocity-initial velocity. Then I divided the answer, 0.775, by the time, 4 seconds.